


it's all tangled in, it's always unraveling

by orphan_account



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24964762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nothing.Absolutely nothing.And then Villanelle screamed.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 138





	it's all tangled in, it's always unraveling

In retrospect, Eve should have known something was wrong the moment she walked through the door.

On its own, a hotel lobby empty of visitors wasn't so alarming — not on that side of town, not at that time of day — and on its own, it would have stayed safely ignored. Except that there was more. They’d managed to avoid _more_ for long enough that Eve let herself forget it might ever come back. The man behind the desk was rattled in a way even Villanelle hadn’t been able to manage when they’d first arrived. More found them again.

The reality of that fact only truly caught up with her on the elevator ride up to their floor. Furniture had been overturned. The very expensive carpets were bunched up and painted in spatters of blood. The desk in front of the man behind the desk was sporting a very fresh crack straight down the middle, and there were two bodies lying in a pile at its side.

More found them again.

Eve sucked a slow breath through her teeth. She went stock still, gripping the plastic takeout bag imperceptibly tighter. She knew, obviously, better than to expect that they could have run forever, _obviously,_ but she’d thought; expected; hoped, if nothing else, that they could have at least run _longer._

“Damn it,” she grumbled, jaw clenched just the wrong side of too-tight.

Above her, the floor indicator ticked up. Eve turned to her right, watching herself in the mirrored walls. The halftone panda logo on her bag stared back, judging from its place in that reflected world. Eve turned to her left. There was dried blood on the handrail.

There was blood on the walls. There was blood in the halls. By the time Eve made it back to their room, she committed to memory the shape and trajectory of no less than four more steady darkening stains of red.

More found them again.

Thankfully, more also led Eve directly to Villanelle. That she had made it all the way back to their room was the smallest of blessings; she was tucked safely away in the dark, in the far corner of the far counter in their bathroom, brought into sudden stark clarity as Eve hit the light switch. The porcelain fixtures, and marble counters, and gold trimming, and coating, and frill turned nearly blinding in the bright, and it was embarrassingly long seconds before Eve realized Villanelle wasn’t moving. More before she realized the unsteady breath and the iron-tight grip she held on her ribs.

If nothing else, she found it fitting. More never was just; more was always _more._

She looked to the mess spread across the counter ahead of Villanelle’s unmoving form. The contents of a first aid kit were dumped haphazardly into the sink. The unfurled trail of some gauze was caught underneath one of her thighs. There was a cut on the corner of her mouth. There was a dark bruise forming at her temple. Something that might have been a knife wound, judging by the puckered and jagged shape of it, was running the length of her right shoulder. Every breath she took threaded faint traces of hurt through her expression, and she seemed barely clinging to that fragile state of half-consciousness.

Unaware of her surroundings, but aware enough of the pain.

Quietly, nervously, Eve padded into the room and dropped the takeout bag on the other side of the sink, watching Villanelle intently. After a pause, she cleared her throat.

Villanelle whimpered in answer, tossing her head barely to the side, and knocking Eve’s heart loose to sink to never before known depths.

“…Villanelle?” she tried, small enough to be barely more than testing, small enough not to disturb. Small enough that the sensation of her heart fading steadily deeper was almost enough to drown it out completely.

It didn’t work. Hesitantly, teeth working at her lower lip, Eve stepped closer. No reaction. She leaned closer. Still nothing. Time seemed to slow as she moved closer and closer, the space between breaths dragging on for eternities and for longer. Eve reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers over the soft skin of Villanelle’s cheek.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

And then Villanelle screamed.

Very loud.

So loud, in fact, that Eve screamed too, stumbling back far enough to slam the back of her head against the opposite wall and collapse all the way down to the floor. Villanelle was streaming, and Eve was screaming, except…

Except…

Except, Villanelle wasn’t screaming, actually. She was _laughing,_ and Eve was still breathless with worry, collapsed enough to barely still be standing where she’d fallen.

“It is _alright,_ Eve,” Villanelle said, shaking with satisfaction and trailing off from the tail end of her smile. “I am alright. You are such a worrier!”

Rage, Eve thought, felt somewhat inadequate as far as emotional descriptors went. She grunted — growled, really — and pushed herself back up the wall.

“I know my beauty can be quite startling at times,” Villanelle said, eyes drifting back toward closed even as her gaze continued to sharpen.

Eve cleared her throat.

“You know, Eve,” continued Villanelle. A massive grin spread its way across her face, reopening the cut at her lips just as her eyes returned to shut. Blood trickled quickly down her chin, drying just as fast. “You missed quite the party while you were out picking that up.”

“Was this the Twelve? Are they —”

“Never mind that,” she answered. “Where is my food? I feel like I have been waiting for _hours!_ After that all that fun, I have certainly earned a good meal.” She opened her eyes slow, gaze lidded and heavy. “Or two.”

“What _happened?_ ”

“Give me my food, and I will tell you everything.”

For a moment; for one very, very, _very_ long moment, Eve considered walking out of the bathroom and throwing it all out the nearest window in the hopes that it might earn her an explanation. She did not. She handed over the bag.

“Thank you,” Villanelle said. She reached blindly for the alcohol and sutures at the top of pile in the sink. “You should start with my shoulder, if you plan to help me. Knife wounds have a tendency to get infected.”

At her glare, Villanelle only shrugged and moved onto rifling through the takeout bag, spreading out everything neatly across what little space on the counter remained. She very specifically ate none of it.

Eve snatched the sutures away.

She started not with Villanelle’s shoulder, but with her face, wetting down one of the hotel hand towels and pushing past the fussing and moaning, the hissing, and wincing, and whining as she wiped the blood away. The first time Eve’s fingers brushed over broken skin, Villanelle mewled, “ _that hurts,_ ” in a played up, played out bit of acting.

In response, Eve flicked the tip of her nose. Villanelle made no further comments. And so they fell to the silence of work: the stroke of fingers over skin, the brush of cotton through blood, alcohol dabbed on cuts, and sutures pierced into flesh, once, and over, and over, and again. By the time she was nearly done, Villanelle’s bloodied knuckles wiped clean and halfway to bandaged, the setting sun had already fallen out of view, leaving nothing but the bathroom lights to guide her work. She dabbed the last clean corner of the last clean hand towel over the back of Villanelle’s palm.

“You know,” Villanelle breathed then, an unfamiliar familiar something dipping her words too deep and low for anyone’s good. “You are _very_ good at this.”

“Hmm,” Eve said. She did not trust herself to say more.

“I mean that. Have you been practicing? How are you so good at this?”

Eve glanced up from beneath her lashes, drawing the pad of her thumb up and down the length of Villanelle’s fingers. When she spoke, it was in the driest tone of voice she could manage: “Maybe I was a surgeon in a past life.”

“Maybe that was the life where I actually managed to be an interior designer,” Villanelle said with that flawless way she had, and without missing a beat. Except. “No killing in that one to distract us, I imagine.”

Except.

Nothing given away but the sound of her voice. One little crack in a an otherwise flawless act. Except…

“Maybe,” Eve agreed.

“We would have been an incredible couple in that life. World famous, I bet. Historians would spend centuries spitefully calling us lifelong live-in friends that never married.”

Except — and it was something Eve had suspected as far back as the innocent-enough days of their before — Villanelle was distinctly less flawless than flawless. The act, the nothing-ever-given-but-a-peek, just that. Her strength was built and rebuilt in the space between the cracks, and the breaks, and the spider web shatters.

Every day together after that terrible London night, another fracture.

Every day together after that wonderful London night, another repair.

It was there before that night, the truth of her. Even during their fight on that bus. Even in that taunt left in the shape of a stuffed bear’s toy heart. Even in Rome. Even with Billie. Even with the blade hidden just beneath the surface of the most perfect shade of lipstick. Even there. Especially there. A cry like _feel me, taste me, know that this was me, and do not ever forget._ It was there in Paris. The cafe. All the way back to…

_You should never call a psychopath a psychopath._

Even there. Even then. How ironic that Eve never saw it until their goodbye-that-wasn’t on that horrible, beautiful London night. How ironic that staying was all it took to know it.

_Did I ruin your life? Do you think I’m a monster?_

Villanelle was gold dusted lacquer running the length of a soul; countless faults hidden behind a camouflage of charm, and fury, and grace. A monster, maybe, but then so was everyone else. So was Eve.

“…Maybe,” Eve repeated and returned to silence; to wrapping up Villanelle’s knuckles and paying no mind to every far too dramatic wince. Reactions for the sake of them. Reactions to distract. Villanelle to the core.

Eve’s brows drew together.

Villanelle smiled. “Not as incredible as we are in _this_ life, obviously, but—”

Without letting her finish, Eve cleared her throat. She needed a distraction of her own. “What happened to keeping a low profile?”

A valiant attempt — even Eve could admit as much — at nonchalantly waving her free hand was made, but the injury at Villanelle’s ribs stopped her short in what might have been the first genuine rush of pain she’d shown that evening. The gesture faded away in a twitch and a wince.

“Tourists,” Villanelle said, grasping at her side. “Men. You know how they are. Turn down _one_ drunken attempt at flirting, and suddenly it is all testosterone and violence. No manners. Peacocks, all of them.”

For lack of any better reaction, Eve held her gaze, one eyebrow still slightly raised.

Villanelle smirked and hummed when she noticed. “I considered behaving myself, you know. For your sake. Playing along until I could lead them somewhere to stage a mugging, and then mug them; that lobby is a public space after all. But one of them grabbed me with his big meaty paws, and…”

She shrugged, as if that explained the rest away. In some strange way, it did: they touched her, and that was the end of it.

“You know I am not that kind of girl. They touched me, and that was the end of it.” Villanelle said with an impassive sniff. She reached for her bruised ribs, testing the shape with two fingers, once, twice, thrice, and then, much slower, with the heel of her palm.

Eve watched on in silence. In some distant corner of her mind, the fight played itself out. Everything fine, everything calm, until the moment it wasn’t. More found them again. Carolyn always said it would be their own fault.

“It happened,” Villanelle said, shrugged. “Now we move on. My ribs are fine, by the way, if you would like to continue holding hands. Your skin is so soft today.”

Eve glanced down. Her work was long finished. She hadn’t realized. She didn’t let go.

Carefully, she licked her lips. “Would you like to eat your food now?”

For several lengthy seconds, Villanelle said nothing. She tilted her head — barely, but enough to notice — and then she was hopping down off the counter like her injuries weren’t bothering her at all, smiling and stepping close enough to trail her gaze and fingers both over the shape of Eve’s hair. She did that, sometimes. Touching without touching. Looking without disturbing. Ghosting over every individual curl like she was afraid, still, that Eve might shatter beneath anything more solid than a breath.

If only Villanelle saw enough to see that she wasn’t the only one made stronger through breaking. One day, she might. Until then, she feared.

“It is probably cold by now,” whispered Villanelle, leaning in close enough for Eve to feel every individual syllable spoken against the lobe of her ear. “But I would like to eat _something._ ”

One breath ghosted light down her throat

The next, her collar.

And the next —

Lips, and —

Tongue, and —

Teeth, and —

“That,” Eve whispered, shoving Villanelle away by the shoulders. “Is not what I asked.”

Villanelle went willingly, shuffling back until she was leaning casually against the countertop. Legs crossed, the full of her weight on one elbow, and her hands clasped at her waist. She was beautiful. She was impossible.

Very deliberately avoiding eye contact, Eve cleared her throat. She stepped up to the spread of food still waiting by the sink. “Would you like to give me a real answer,” she asked. “Or are we flirting in the hopes I’ll just forget?”

“I _gave_ you my real answer.”

Eve exhaled sharply, grabbing her meal and hoisting herself onto the counter.

The moment she did, Villanelle spoke again. “Not yet. In fact, you should eat on the go. We’ll need to sneak out if we want to leave before trouble arrives.”

“…What,” Eve said.

“The man at the desk kicked us out while you were gone,” Villanelle said, already moving for the door. “We are _technically_ trespassing right now, but I wanted to wait until you returned with my food.”


End file.
